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Gorgeous Photos of Crafts and DIY Projects

Get crafty with our gallery of homemade items and DIY projects

There’s never been a better time to take up a new hobby. With the advent of the internet - mountains of knowledge about creating everything from paper airplanes to butler robots is available at the tips of your fingers. The only thing you need is time and a undying passion for learning a new skill.

Maybe that’s what makes the DIY movement so profoundly popular right now. It seems like everywhere you look on the internet - new handcrafted jewellery stores, homemade wall decor shops, and designer wooden frame dealers are popping up and cashing in.

The History of the DIY Movement

Although the term DIY has been in use since the 1950s - the DIY movement itself is relatively new. Its roots can be traced back to publications in the 1970s like the Whole Earth Catalog which would instruct users on how to renovate old homes in an environmentally sustainable way.

Magazines in the 1970’s like Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated began offering methods and instructions on practical home renovation and DIY decorations for home improvement. On top of this - many instructional books and videos were created around this time teaching people the same sustainable and easy home-renovation techniques as well as different hobbies - such as wood working, knitting, crochet, sewing and ceramics.

However it wasn’t until the advent of the internet that the DIY movement morphed from a practical way of managing one’s home into a creative enterprise. As a movement - DIY was most popular with punk bands in the 1970s. Bands would not only record and mass-produce their own music - but would produce flyers, zines, and other merchandise to promote their music.
Today - you can see an extension of this enterprise in bands that build followings on sites such as Bandcamp and Soundcloud - and sell merchandise using tools like Shopify and Printful.

Turning Handmade Crafts into Cold, Hard Cash

It’s not just bands and artists that have taken on the DIY movement. The entrepreneurial spirit of the internet has made it easy to turn any hobby or creative outlet into a career. For example if you were a creator of hand-crafted jewellry - there was a time when you may have been relegated to flea markets and street-selling. But in 2017 - things have changed.

Today, you can post a collage of your work to sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook - build a following for your artwork and crafts and set-up an online store to sell your projects quickly and easily and all from the comfort of your home.